There has recently been focus on security background checks
for character flaws and especially for vulnerability for blackmail for high-level federal
appointees because of breaches of security in the Trump Administration because
of the lack of security clearances issued to staff because of problems
discovered in the applicants’ backgrounds.
Most
liberals and Democrats argued in 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and
subsequent impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton that character did not matter,
only policy and popularity. The Trump
Administration security scandals have led liberals to acknowledge the necessity
of the security checks, in particular because of the concern about blackmail, even
if not to acknowledge that character matters for officeholders, whether
appointed or elected, as the background checks are also intended to safeguard against corruption, malfeasance and, particularly for those who would receive access to classified secret intelligence, disloyalty to the United States.
The reason
former White House staffer Linda Tripp stated that she was a whistleblower
against Bill Clinton and reported his adulterous affair with White House intern,
Lewinsky, to the authorities was because the President had made himself vulnerable to blackmail by his misdeeds. The mistress had told Tripp that Clinton had mentioned to her in a telephonic conversation that a foreign government had been listening into his telephonic conversations. Clinton was
not impeached for his adultery with his subordinate, which was a federal crime
in the District of Columbia, and an abuse of office, but for perjury and
obstruction of justice in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit in which he was the
defendant, but he could have been removed from office for such reckless behavior that made him
vulnerable to blackmail by a foreign government or any enemy.
Protecting
whistleblowers is essential for security and good government. They must be defended, whether one likes
those whom the whistleblower is exposing or not.
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